Walnut Capital Group Hopes To Expand Bakery Square

Walnut Capital Group, the development firm that repurposed the old NABISCO plant on Penn Avenue as Bakery Square, wants to buy the shuttered Reizenstein School building across the street. Walnut put in a $5.4 million bid for the building. The plan is to raze the structure and replace it with office and retail space, as well as several new stand-alone homes and rental townhomes.

The new development would be called Bakery Square 2.

The Bakery Square development is currently home to several companies, including Google. While all of its office space is filled, 60,000 feet of its retail space remains empty.

Greg Perelman, Managing Partner at Walnut Capital, said attempting to purchase the property from the district makes sense. "We have a major investment across the street," Perelman said. "We have a $130 million investment at Bakery Square 1, and this enables us to continue the momentum in terms of what's happening in the East End."

The school district also opened bids yesterday for the buildings that once housed Schenley High School and the Ridge Avenue school.